You Go, Garrison

I wonder if you ever read the New York Times Book Review, Bush? I guess probably not. Too busy. Anyway, listen, if you'd like a good chuckle--no, really, a great belly-laugh--you owe it to yourself to check this out. It's a review by Garrison Keillor of Bernard-Henri Levy's American Vertgo, a book that purports to reveal the innermost soul of the country that you love. The review is one the best jabs at French intellectual pomposity that I've ever read. Mind you, as a Brit, I may be biased about such matters, but this one had me rolling in the aisles. Metaphorically, of course. I was actually out on the balcony, enjoying a cigar. (By the way, as I write this, only a short time later, I am reminded that the pleasure of cigar-smoking is NOT for the aftertaste!) I guess I'd been prepared for a good laugh at the expense of the French by having sat through two and a half hours of the movie "Cache" last night, an infuriating piece of moving-making which ends in what must be one of the biggest fuck-yous in film history. Call me old-fashioned, but I look for the satisfaction of at least a small payoff when I've devoted that much time to someone's artistic efforts. In this case, forget it. None. Just a slap in the face of anyone old-fashioned enough to expect anything as bourgeois as a payoff. Ah well. Anyway, do yourself a favor, Bush. Check it out. You'll laugh as hard as I did, and you could likely use a good laugh, given the rest of the news in the front page of the Times.